Turkey has increased its provocations by air and at the sea on Thursday, by harassing Greek fishermen and a Frontex vessel from Finland in the eastern Aegean Sea, while fighter jets overflew Greek islets and even the island of Patmos.
A Turkish Coast Guard patrol boat entered Greek territorial waters and for four hours it harassed a Greek fisherman boat as well as a Frontex vessel from Finland. The incident took place near the islet of Panagia in Oinousses islands off the island of Chios in the East Aegean Sea.
According to Chios media politischios, that obtained the video, the Turkish vessel called on the fisherman and the Frontex vessel to leave the area, claiming it was “Turkish territorial waters.” The vessel conducted dangerous maneuvers in high speed, just 1.5 nautical miles from the Greek coast.
When a Greek coast guard vessel appeared, a second vessel of the TCG came in the area increasing the tension.
At the end the two Turkish vessels withdrew and sailed back to the port city of Cesme.
A couple of hours later, Turkish F-16 fighter jets entered Greek airspace and flew 16 times times over several islands in the eastern Aegean..
A pair of F-16s first flew over the islets of Arki at 1.59 p.m. at 24,000 feet, over Lipsi at 2.04 p.m. at 17,000 and 15,000 feet.
Later, the fighter jets flew over the island of Patmos at 25,000 feet and again over Lipsi at 26,000 feet.
The continued in separate flights again over Lipsi, Arki and Agathonisi.
The sea and air space violations took place on the day a Turkish news paper claimed that the tourism ministers of Turkey and Greece plan a joint campaign to promote tourism in summer 2020.
The newspaper claimed that Mehmet Ersoy called his Greek counterpart Haris Theoharis and both agreed on a joint campaign to promote holidays in the Aegean which is a safe area amid the pandemic.
Thursday afternoon and the Greek Tourism Minister has neither ocnfirmed nor rejected Hurriyet’s front page news.